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LGBT Books and Foreshadowing
by JL Nich
Why do writers foreshadow?
A good writer will give warnings or indication in hints or clues to an unknown future event. Writers call it a literary device; I call it a suspension tool. It keeps the reader engaged with curiosity and it can make the twisted big reveal finale better. Think The Sixth Sense. The foreshadowing shades the readers thoughts to guide them toward thinking specific things, and yet those directions can be direct, more subtle, or tension filled. In a mystery they can also be misleading.
Types of foreshadowing:
Direct foreshadowing is used by writers to directly point at or hint at some outcome. The outcome is not told or ‘revealed’ but, the hint is given that tells you it will be a whopper of a reveal.
Popular Examples –
Dialogue, the character actually tells you “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
Character reactions, showing apprehension, confusion, or curiosity, facial expressions, gestures, or words. At this point, the readers don’t know what is wrong, but they anticipate finding out. I always picture a woman opening a door, looking out, and screaming.
Settings, such as battle fields, graveyards, forests, a lone cabin in the woods, a house made of gingerbread and candy. These settings foreshadow the tale you are about to read.
Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone by JK Rowling the Dursleys are described as “perfectly normal” and “they are the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.”
Titanic was considered ‘unsinkable’ from the onset, foreshadowing its demise.
Star Wars
Prophecy of the ‘Chosen One’ in Star Wars was an ancient Jedi legend that foretold the coming of a powerfully Force-sensitive being who would restore balance to the Force.
LGBT Direct Foreshadowing Examples –
Tropical Storm by Melissa Good or practically any title reference for the Dar and Kerry series. The weather conflict hints at a rocky tale of this couple’s romance and lifestyle.
Loves Melody Lost by Radclyffe hints from the title that love has to be found again.
Safe Harbor (Provincetown Tales #1) by Radclyffe. There is an early morning moment where Doctor Victoria King is out rowing in the tumultuous waters while Reese Conlon, the new sheriff watches her from the beach and sees her struggle but eventually overcome the adversity.
Starting from Scratch by Georgia Beers. The main character Avery King tells us she like to avoid ‘dealing with children, online dating, babysitting…”and this foretells exactly what happens in the book.
Symbolism
Symbols, a gun, blood, dramatic music, Harry Potters lightning bolt scar.
Indirect foreshadowing is used as a hint at the outcome. This type of foreshadowing, if extremely subtle, may only be recognized after the outcome has occurred.
Popular Examples –
Weather, storm clouds gathering, wind, rain, clouds clearing
Omens, reading a bad horoscope, or a lone animal like a crow or wolf, seeing blood, a black cat, a displaced horseshoe that is no longer hanging up.
Time or seasons, such as spring is in the air or snow drifts on the winds.
Katniss Everdeen is the ‘girl on fire’ which is essentially what she does for the districts after she wins the Hunger Games. And the ‘Mocking Jay’ is a symbol of survival that outlasted the Capitals intentions of control.
Malcolm Crowe is a child psychologist in the novel The Sixth Sense. He meets 8-year-old Cole Sear who ‘sees dead people’. Cole tells Malcolm “Ghosts don’t even know they are dead”.
Rubyfruit Jungle
- In the book Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown, the protagonist Molly Bolt is thinking about her mother Carrie when she discusses her film goals. She eventually makes her senior project, a short film of Carrie.
LGBT Examples –
In the book When Women Were Warriors Book 1: The Warrior’s Path by Catherine M. Wilson, the protagonist is gifted new shoes by her Mother before they set off to travel to serve the Lady. She is leaving the only home she’s known to go be a warrior under Lady Merin. The new shoes symbolize many things: a new beginning, a new path to take, growing up, change, new service, money, wealth. The mother puts on her oldest pair of shoes for the trip. The oldest pair of shoes symbolize the end of her service, experience, comfort, of lessons learned.
In Gun Shy by Lori Lake, the romance between cops is off limits so says the main character Dez Reilly after a rude awakening from an ex. Dez built a wall, made a rule, ‘no more romance with cops’, to avoid any future pain. This foreshadowing hints at the wall coming down and the rules being broken.
In Backwards to Oregon by Jae, this western takes us from the role of a prostitution to a mother, to a more respectable state of marriage for the main character Nora, as she and her new husband Luke, who is hiding the fact he is a woman in disguise from her, marry and travel hundreds of miles in a wagon train to Oregon together. Nora’s daughter Amy easily steals Luke’s heart along with the blooming romance between Nora and Luke themselves. The title Backward to Oregon foreshadows the strange twists of fate between the two characters as they eventually fall in love after meeting, forming a family unit, marriage, and finally getting to know who they both are deep down at their core.
Fog Weather
Indirect foreshadowing of less than clear images, mysteries, the “GRAY zone” between reality and unreality, uncertainty, death.
The Two-Shoe Contract.
The two-shoe contract says a writer cannot foreshadow the event that might take place (death by gun, HEA by wedding dress, allergic reaction to peanuts by bowl of peanuts, etc) then change the tune at the last minute.
If one shoe hits the floor, then the second shoe will fall shortly after.
Let’s say you foreshadow a happily ever after wedding bliss by showing a bride’s dress laid out on a bed, but then the character never has that moment. The readers might feel that you failed to deliver. You’ve broken the two-shoe contract.
Foreshadow examples of the two-shoe contract.
The Jaws theme music always foretells the sharks arrival.
Star Trek the only character that wears a Red Shirt.
In Lord of the Rings when you heard the beating of the drums you knew the Orcs were near, or when Frodo’s sword began to glow Orcs were near.
With Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone by JK Rowling, every time Hagrad said “I shouldn’t have said that.” you knew it was super important to pay attention. Every time Harry’s scar hurt evil was nearby.
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg when the characters yell ‘ToWanda’ there will be an act of crazy bravery regardless of consequence.
Other Types of Foreshadowing
Concrete foreshadowing – author explicitly states something that they want you to be aware of for the future. For example, from Manasco: Passage to Anathema by Carole Wolf the author tells you Isaac is turning 10 and will become a man this day, no longer to be a faceless child but a ‘recognized member of 2nd Colony-Calabrecia’, a city full of corruption and hostility.
Prophecy – the author provides a fortune or prophecy that a character will receive, which explicitly tells the reader what will happen in the future. For example, a character wakes up and the narrator talks about how this is going to be the longest day of her life. An example would be Caidence Harris character in chapter 1 of And Playing the Role of Herself by K.E. Lane. She is acting a scene with a child who has a runny nose, with a guest director she dislikes, and she thinks this is going to be a ‘long day’. Of course there is also the prophecy example of an omen or fortune such as when the oracle stones are cast in Huntress by Malinda Lo, and Kaede and Taisin, two seventeen-year-old girls, are picked to go on a dangerous and unheard-of journey to Tanlili, the city of the Fairy Queen.
Flashback – this time bridged moment is used to moves the story forward or reveal information about the character to aid with conflict. An example would be in romance taking the story back to high school to show a bullying moment then jumping to now to show the two characters meeting again.
Symbolic, Abstract – this type of foreshadowing is very subtle but shows more clearly when the second shoe drops, such as character’s luck, mood, or behavior is changed. Blades of Bluegrass by D. Jackson Leigh shows the main character Captain Britt Story returning to the only place she calls home, her grandfathers farm, recoving from a wound of her body and heart. Her missing arm is just one of the injuries she has to survive and there is a moment when she finally relaxes enough to allow her love interest ‘the therapists’ and Army officer First Lieutenant Teddy Alexander, who persists in challenging Britt to using her prostesis. This begins the true recovery of her battle hardened body and
Red Herring, a diversion to make the reader think away from the actual plot. This type if foreshadowing is a smoke screen or a goose chase. An excellent example comes from The Devil Inside (Cain Casey Book 1) by Ali Vali, when Derby Cain Casey is betrayed by Emma Verde, her lover. The author throws us into confusion as she weaves an intricate plot to put Cain outside the grasp of the ever narrowing law who continously chase her mob family. And as Emma Verde returns to her world to tip it on its axess once more.
Red Moon Foreshadow
“Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in morning, sailor’s warning” a prophecy poem for weather lore to aid those on the water to watch for storms.
Foreshadowing is a key tool used by writers to build dramatic tension and suspense throughout their stories along with preparing the reader for a big reveal. Many ways to foreshadow allow the reader to wonder what will happen next and it keeps them involved with the story. A greater satisfaction can be found once all the dots are connected, giving additional pleasure once the story is complete.